Update 11:44am Eastern. Here we go. Twenty minutes of debate has just kicked off with Harry Reid whining about the defeat of shamnesty.

Update 9:45am Eastern 10/24. Via USA Today, it looks like Dick Durbin is worried about senators showing up for the vote: “Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the legislation’s chief sponsor, said Tuesday that his biggest challenge was ensuring that supporters, including five senators — four Democrats and one Republican — running for president, make it to the Capitol for the roll call. Another question mark: Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, who are trying to return to California to review wildfire damage…Durbin needs 60 votes to allow the bill to be debated. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said the DREAM Act amounts to a ‘ratification of illegality’ and could provide an incentive for more illegal immigration. ”

In anticipation of today’s cloture vote, DREAM Act supporters have been telling people that the measure would give amnesty to only 60,000 illegal aliens a year; see this, for instance, from the Daily Kos. But even their own think tank disagrees — the Migration Policy Institute has estimated that 360,000 illegals would get amnesty right away, with another 715,000 benefiting in the future, for a total of over 1 million amnestied. Using a different data source, we looked at the same question and estimated that the total number of potential beneficiaries of the amnesty is 2.1 million. What’s more, there are another 1.4 million parents and young siblings of the under-18 amnesty recipients who do not themselves qualify for the amnesty, but whom the government is likely to let stay once their family members get legalized.

Update 7:30pm Eastern. I’m bumping this post to the Lead Story slot and will keep it here through tomorrow’s cloture vote. Where do your Senators stand? Let me know what responses you get. If Republicans had brains, they would put attrition through enforcement first and Just Say No to any new illegal alien magnets.

Noam Askew has a list of possible fence-sitters. You’ll notice a lot of open-borders Republicans on that list.

Sen. Cornyn (R-Texas) sent his statement this evening. Kind of wishy-washy, but at least he comes down on the right side:

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made the following statement this evening regarding his intention to vote tomorrow against the motion to proceed to the DREAM Act (S. 2205), which was introduced by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

“As I have long said, I have a great deal of sympathy for the plight of children who have no moral culpability for being in this country illegally. Congress should continue seeking reasonable and responsible ways they can complete their education and achieve opportunity.

“Unfortunately, the Durbin bill contains a number of gaping loopholes, while failing to address the much larger need for comprehensive immigration reform and the immediate crisis at our borders. For example, it contains no firm requirement for the illegal immigrant to graduate with a degree from an accredited U.S. institution of Higher Education (either a two or four-year institution), it grants them broad access to federal student loans at a time when we are struggling to meet loan needs for our own citizens, and it extends the benefits to adults, rather than focusing on children. Moreover, from a law enforcement perspective, his bill does nothing to prevent fraud, allows certain criminal aliens to qualify for legal status, and ties the hands of law enforcement by severely limiting their access to application information.

“If my colleagues who support this measure are committed to solving America’s immigration crisis and the plight of illegal immigrants, then the focus of this Congress should be on passing a comprehensive reform bill that addresses all of our pressing immigration matters, including securing our broken borders and the needs of American businesses for more workers.”

***

I’ve been keeping you up to date with the latest on the Dems’ attempt (with help from open borders Republicans) to ram the DREAM Act through the Senate. It now looks like a cloture vote is set for tomorrow. Numbers USA reports: “Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) filed to invoke cloture on S. 2205, Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin’s (D-Ill.) new stand-alone DREAM Act amnesty bill. The cloture vote, for which 60 YES votes are necessary to prevent a filibuster on the measure, is set for Wednesday, October 24. Reid is attempting to bring this nightmarish amnesty bill to the floor under Senate Rule XIV without it ever having been debated in committee.”

This morning, I received the following e-mail circulated today by Sen. Durbin’s Judiciary staff:

Senators Durbin, Hagel and Lugar invite you to a staff briefing on S. 2205, the DREAM Act. A cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the DREAM Act will take place this Wednesday morning (tomorrow). The briefing is scheduled for Tuesday, October 23, in SC-6 of the U.S. Capitol.

The DREAM Act would make it possible for certain long-term undocumented immigrant children to go to college or join the military if they meet stringent requirements. It does not address the status of their parents, but simply allows children-who had no choice in the decision to come here-the opportunity to continue their education and give back to the country that they call home.

This bipartisan legislation has passed the Senate Judiciary Committee three times in various forms, and was approved by the Senate last year as part of the comprehensive immigration bill, S. 2611.